BULLETIN 
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 
Vol. XII] New York, March, 1886. (No. 3. 
The Flora of the Amboy Clays. 
By J. S. NEWBERRY. 
(Abstract. ) 
The Amboy clays of New Jersey represent the middle por- 
tion of the Cretaceous system, and are equivalents of the Lower 
Chalk of England. This has been known ina general way for 
many years, since the clays contain angiosperm leaves, and this 
botanical group, beginning in the earliest epoch of the Cretaceous 
age, shows its first considerable development in the Middle Cre- 
taceous; and the green-sands which overlie the clays are full of 
the mollusks which are characteristic of the Upper Chalk. 
The Amboy clays are several hundred feet in thickness, and 
contain a great number of leaf impressions, which are, to a large 
extent, different in the different beds. Perhaps a hundred dis- 
tinct species have been collected from them up to the present 
time, and it is evident that they hold a very rich and interesting 
flora. As the clays are of great economic importance, and are 
likely to be worked at many places, perhaps for hundreds of — 
years, this flora will probably become better known than that of 
any other geological formation except the Coal Measures. Un- 
fortunately most of the leaf impressions hitherto obtained from 
the clay pits have proved perishable—a thick sheet of carbon- 
aceous matter occupying the place of the original leaf, and in 
fresh specimens contrasting beautifully with the light colored clay, 
but cracking, when dried, to a powder that may be blown off with _ 
the breath. For this reason the collections formerly made have — 
been lost, and the study of the flora has been delayed. Within 
a few years past, however, beds have been found at South — 
Amboy and Woodbridge in which the leaves are represented by — 
a thin film of brown carbonaceous matter, or a coffee colored — 
stain, in which the nervation is distinctly discernible. From — 
